May 15, 2007 – The Loess Hills of Iowa

Well, the cold front is here. We woke to temperatures in the 50’s and cloudy skies. What a relief from yesterday’s 90’s. We have been using our weather alert radio since we are in the planes and were a little concerned about this front moving in. But we were okay where we were. A few counties north of us had golf ball size hail..

We made our way towards Council Bluffs, IA (winds were only ~ 10 MPH) and arrived at the Hitchcock Nature Center Campground late morning. The Nature Center is located in the Loess (pronounced “luss”) Hills which extend for 200 miles from Sioux City, IA to St. Joseph, MO. It has some of the largest remaining prairie remnants in Iowa and not found until hundreds of miles west of here and the second largest deposits of loess soil in the world. (China has the largest.)

So what is loess soil? I am glad you asked. (Yes, I find this interesting and I have pictures too.) During the warm spells at the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, the waterway that became the Missouri River was a torrent of glacial runoff. However, as each winter set in, the waters diminished, leaving behind soils that had been ground as fine as flour by the glaciers. Prevailing winds blew the lightweight particles, called loess, to the eastern riverbank, forming dunes as the process repeated itself over thousands of years. Eventually topsoil covered the hills. But remove the topsoil on the slope of a Loess Hill and the exposed loess will dissolve like sugar in the next rain. Even covered with topsoil, loess can slump in a unified way across a slope creating “cat-step” ledges. Also, cross sections of most of the hills show loess soil only – no rocks! When Lewis and Clark saw the hills in 1804, they were mostly prairie and occupied by Sioux, Omaha, Iowa, and Oto Indians. (Yes, I copied all this but I still have pictures!)




The campground sits on one of these loess hills and the pictures are from both the campground and the nature center that has an observation tower.

We then took a drive to the Lewis and Clark Monument and Scenic Overlook. The monument honors the expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804 and their historic meeting with the Otoe and Missouri Indians. From the monument, we get a western view of Omaha and the Missouri River.

Some of you may have heard of the flooding they had last week in Iowa. Well, this is the area where that happened. We saw many areas where they had cleaned up mudslides. A town that is only 30 miles away was totally flooded and the people were being let back into the town today. In Council Bluffs, many of the streets have water run off canals like this one:

Since this area is just so great and the campground so nice, we decided to stay another day. Here is our site – notice our neighbors… (none!).

Miles Traveled: 85
Routes Traveled:
Iowa:
SR25, SR44 (Scenic Byway), SR59, I-80, I-680, I-20, G37, SR183 (Old Lincoln Highway – the first coast to coast route).